Reviews & Media

Praise for Both Sides Now

I finished reading Both Sides Now earlier this week and I have been wanting to write to you. The book is not a novel so much as a testimonial, the kind of thing thoughtful, articulate Jews wrote after liberation from the work and extinction camps in Poland in the 1940s. It is a riveting story, not just because of the content, or the stunning honesty and clarity of the teller. It's riveting because it's well written. Whatever genre it may be, it certainly is art. It's thoughtfully constructed; the tone is distanced enough to be ironic, even humorous at times; and it goes after truths. Subjective truths, of course, but it hunts for meaning in a serious, artistic way. Writing such a book, articulating all these long-silenced events and meanings, is an incredibly powerful act. The effect on your own life must be huge, with effects rippling out to many others, and I do not just mean extended family.

I feel a real connection with this character, Rose, who is half-Jewish, not fully integrated into either side of her family, and also the child who carries the family's shadows in some way. The sacrificial goat, although no one would ever put it so baldly. But unconsciously, Rose carries the darkness of earlier generations, and their silence. Shadows and silence don't seem heavy, but the one who carries them knows different. Bearing them can do one of two things: break a person's back, or push her into inquiry, into the search for meanings.Thankfully, Rose took the second road.

As Rose tries to uncover the full scope of what happened to her, Nadler leaps between present and past—featuring Rose the character and Rose the investigator. It results in a fragmented text that effectively suggests the simultaneity of trauma and memory. Chapters are separated by lists, poems, short vignettes, and other items that feel pulled straight from a diary; Nadler’s prose also displays a strong preference for staccato sentences, as well as dramatic imagery: “I was relegated to the back rooms of [my mother’s] consciousness. The back rooms where cigars were smoked and poker played. The back rooms where shady deals were made. Where she would never go.” Although this stylistic choppiness does become overwhelming, at times the book’s sheer emotional weight offers a powerful reading experience. An upsetting, affecting novel about an attempt to understand trauma.